Faith of Our Fathers

Today, I came on an article at The Sideshow about scams that gives some reasons for believing in something that defies reality. I see what we expect of our families having something of that appeal, that we need something besides the realities we have to deal with badly enough to project onto our family that supernatural character that we know isn't there, so we invent it.

The findings of a study of scams turned up characteristics of people who fall for them. We may all see things because we wish they were there, but some things stand out in those who put more into fantasies than others do.

From the executive summary, here's some stuff you may know:

Appeals to trust and authority: people tend to obey authorities so scammers use, and victims fall for, cues that make the offer look like a legitimate one being made by a reliable official institution or established reputable business.

Visceral triggers: scams exploit basic human desires and needs -- such as greed, fear, avoidance of physical pain, or the desire to be liked -- in order to provoke intuitive reactions and reduce the motivation of people to process the content of the scam message deeply. For example, scammers use triggers that make potential victims focus on the huge prizes or benefits on offer.

Scarcity cues. Scams are often personalised to create the impression that the offer is unique to the recipient. They also emphasise the urgency of a response to reduce the potential victim's motivation to process the scam content objectively.

Induction of behavioural commitment. Scammers ask their potential victims to make small steps of compliance to draw them in, and thereby cause victims to feel committed to continue sending money.

The disproportionate relation between the size of the alleged reward and the cost of trying to obtain it. Scam victims are led to focus on the alleged big prize or reward in comparison to the relatively small amount of money they have to send in order to obtain their windfall; a phenomenon called 'phantom fixation'. The high value reward (often life-changing, medically, financially, emotionally or physically) that scam victims thought they could get by responding, makes the money to be paid look rather small by comparison.

Lack of emotional control. Compared to non-victims, scam victims report being less able to regulate and resist emotions associated with scam offers. They seem to be unduly open to persuasion, or perhaps unduly undiscriminating about who they allow to persuade them. This creates an extra vulnerability in those who are socially isolated, because social networks often induce us to regulate our emotions when we otherwise might not.(Emphasis added.)

While most of us are reality based in our credulousness, it's not hard to envision investing heavily in some one we believe in, as Madoff's investors did. He was a person associated with very high position, who preyed on members of his own community. Would all of us weigh the words of some one close to us heavily, rather than simply assuming he'd never betray some one who was part of his world?

I believe all of us are betrayed at one time or another, if only by accepting our parents' word for it that there really is a Santa Claus, or a God. We would rather not lose the beauty of that concept. We all believe in our own basic goodness, but we can all find out, with shock, that we've been rotten in some way, if only by not loving when love is expected of us. I never suffered from post partum depression, but can sympathize.

There are things you don't accept in those you basically love. What to do about it? If you really loved me, you'd put in the comments what a great post this is? No. So you choose, for the most part, to overlook it. I confess, in High School I voted for Richard Nixon in a mock election. I believed that completely in the opinions I heard at home.

We can all be played.

But Happy Father's Day anyway. And I bet you put a sunny disposition on, whatever you may be feeling. Good on you.

Your Money At Play

Studies of the contracting 'procedures' in U.S. wars, during the previous maladministration, has shown what seemed probable from the costs as related to production; what procedures? Under a group formed to give close scrutiny to the Pentagon's supply of our troops, staggering expense tracked directly back to staggeringly blasé winging it with public funds and military needs.

The contractors that literally ran rampant through the countries we took over were just one branch that proved profligate with our money. The military showed all the concern for our national treasure usually connected with pigs at a trough.

The bipartisan CWC, commissioned by Senators Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), James Webb (D-Va.), and Susan Collins (R-Maine), took several months to study the multitude of ways in which the government has been scammed. Staffed by employees of the relevant government agencies, branches of the military and the private sector, the group analyzed hundreds of audits and reports before seeking out answers in the field.

Their studies led them to investigate relevant government and contractor organizations in Washington, interviewing various employees. Not content with second hand accounts, the CWC then flew staff to Iraq and Afghanistan, where they observed, interviewed and analyzed contractors, and the government employees supposed to be overseeing them.

What they found confirmed their worst fears. Not only is the weather in Iraq unpleasantly hot, but the contracting system is completely broken.
(snip)
...apathy from politicians towards civil service, combined with a lack of a clear legal definition, has led to staff shortages in some agencies being filled by contractors, even though it is done unlawfully.

With the amount of contractors supporting contingencies in Iraq and Afghanistan outnumbering government personnel, the commission feels that this imbalance should be redressed, in part, by clearly defining what cannot be outsourced, and hiring an appropriate amount of government officials accordingly.

A clear example of something that the commission feels should not be outsourced can be found amidst Afghanistan's system of private military contractors. The administration of a private security oversight committee, the Armed Contractor Oversight Division (ACOD) in Afghanistan, was contracted to a British firm, Aegis, upon the ACOD's establishment in Afghanistan in February of this year.

Yes, that’s right. A government oversight division has been contracted. Not only is it fundamentally wrong that private interests are managing a government watchdog, but there is also the potential for conflict of interest. Should Aegis, or an affiliate of the company, bid successfully for a private security contract, then the company would be supervising itself, while collecting two separate checks from U.S. taxpayers. (Emphasis added.)

The gross maladministration of this country extended in many directions, and reached an apogee in its wars. The former chief of the executive branch who came into office by malfeasance, whose whole career was an illustration of avoiding Hard Work, created a mess that extends to every branch of the government. Cleaning up the mess is a hard job, indeed, and will take dedicated public servants' returning to government and slowly but surely taking back this country for the people.

The billions that the previous maladministration blew in its wars would have paid several times over for the health care system that its leftovers are now fighting maniacally to resist.

No More Place To Hide?

The sudden decision by healthcare industry members that they can begin to take smaller bites out of suffering U.S. citizens has a poetic quality. The reckless profit taking of the industry has resulted in growing numbers of bankruptcies. That figure of half of all bankruptcies resulting from health problems no longer even needs to have a link attached, it's common knowledge.

The continuing robbery of consumers is suddenly unacceptable even to the industry, in view of the collapse of our entire economic system. Dan Froomkin collected several points of view on the new tack health industry representatives are taking.

When you're trying to crunch the numbers for America's future, the prospect of ever-skyrocketing health care costs makes everything look really grim.

And that's why the White House's announcement today -- that a broad coalition of health-industry groups is vowing to rein in the growth in health care costs, after years of uncontrolled increases -- is such a big deal. Simply trimming the annual health care spending growth rate by 1.5 percent would be enough to save the nation $2 trillion over 10 years. It would also dramatically slow the increasing cost of Medicare, and would make President Obama's hopes for universal health coverage considerably more affordable.

"This is a historic day, a watershed event in the long and elusive quest for health care reform," Obama said today.

Indeed, in an answer to those of us who weren't too impressed with the $17 billion in possible savings trumpeted by the White House last week, now we're talking real money.

There's more we need to know before getting too excited, however. One is where these "savings" will really come from -- and that we won't know for a while. But the other is what exactly united this extraordinary range of normally competing groups, some of them highly averse to government intrusion. That we should know more quickly.

Were they brought together by altruism? OK, stop laughing. No, the question of course is: What's in it for them? Did they decide that getting on Obama's train was better than being thrown under it? That certainly seems to be a part of it. But these guys are pretty clever. What do they think they're getting in return for one potentially empty promise?
(snip)
Ezra Klein blogs for the American Prospect: "The politics of this should surely cheer supporters of reform. In essence, this is the entire medical industry stepping forward and declaring themselves partners in Obama's effort.

The consumer has been decapitated and the economy is in the ditch, because of lack of restraints, and/or of regulation. Now it's becoming increasingly obvious that health costs climbing overboard into unsustainable territory won't be continued. The attempt to keep from regulations bringing them in control has struck fear in the hearts of the mogul horde.

Regulating costs may be hard, as is moving to a health-oriented industry from a profit-driven one. It may take a few years to effect, but there are no excuses for letting the industry write its own rules. The years of doing that have brought us to the bad place the country is in.

Who Really Runs California

Today's Sacramento Bee has a lengthy article on how special interests and their lobbyists get their way in state government. The graphic accompanying the article lists the spending of some of those special interests, and the totals for a single state are rather staggering. What is even more staggering is how successful those special interests have been.

Special interests spent a record $553 million lobbying California state government in the past two years.

For them, it was money well spent.

Makers of chemical fire- retardants poured in more than $9 million to kill a ban on fire-proofing chemicals in furniture that consumer groups say cause cancer.

The Morongo Band of Mission Indians used $4.39 million to muscle through a gambling deal to let the tribe add thousands of lucrative new slot machines to its casino.

The oil industry spent more than $10.5 million to influence the Legislature and state agencies. A 2007 industry association report touted that even in a Democratic-controlled Legislature, "of the 52 bills identified as priorities (in 2007), only three that we opposed were approved by the Legislature."

Of those three, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed two.

And that money doesn't just go towards wining and dining legislators or taking them to the Sacramento Kings basketball games. A lot of it is directed to mass mailing, television commercials, and full page newspaper ads:

When retail lobbying is not enough, well-heeled interests have the resources to mobilize public relations campaigns – or at least threaten to do so – to ratchet up the pressure.

In early 2007, the Morongo tribe was telling every reporter and lawmaker within earshot of the Capitol that it had allotted $20 million for a PR offensive to win its battle for more slot machines.

The tribe vowed a statewide TV blitz, 500,000 pieces of direct mail, phone calls and even a door-knocking campaign in the districts of the 10 Democrats on the Assembly's gambling committee.

It appeared to be a "shock-and-awe"- scale effort to press for its gambling expansion aimed at majority Democrats. One lawmaker called the tribe out for bullying tactics.

As it turned out, the tribe spent only $3.5 million that quarter, according to financial disclosures filed months later. But the message had been sent – the tribe had the resources to alter the political playing field in Sacramento. Its casino expansion was approved.

The threat worked on this specific issue, and the state legislators involved will remember that threat the next time the tribe comes around. The Chamber of Commerce has been working that same angle for decades with its "job-killer" designation on bills the business community wants stopped.

In 2008 alone, 29 of the 39 "job killers" identified by the chamber died in the Legislature. Schwarzenegger vetoed nine of the remaining 10 that made it to his desk.

As the article makes clear, it's not just the money involved which makes the lobbyists so successful. Because of term limits, a lot of legislators don't have the knowledge to navigate state government. Lobbyists (of all people!) are now seen as the repository of institutional memory. Many new members of the assembly get crash courses on how to shepherd a bill through the legislature from their new best friends, thereby giving the lobbyists not only precious face time but also gratitude from the noobs.

So, now we know who runs this state government, and it's not the citizens of California or the people they send to Sacramento. The next question is what do we do about it? Hopefully the Bee has some ideas.